There’s Only One Way the Democratic Party Can Win Back the White House and Congress: Toss a Lit Match into the Gas Can of Trump Voters’ Perpetual Anger

Put it this way: How does one talk someone mired in irrational beliefs into accepting fact-based reality? More to the point these days, how does one change a Trump voter’s mind and get her or him to reject Trump’s multiplying lies and vote for a Democrat next time?

As one of my Facebook friends astutely commented “How do you reason someone out of a position that they themselves did not reason into?”

My answer is—you can’t.

But you can pry enough Trump voters out of the Republican Party and incite them to vote for Democrats, and thereby put a Democrat in the White House and dominate both houses of Congress for years to come.

First you have to understand how to do this.

Forget reason. Forget facts. Forget rational argument. Forget policy. Rather, think of distracting a greyhound chasing a rabbit. You won’t talk him out of it. There’s only one way: distract the mindless creature… with another rabbit.

Because I was an evangelical religious right leader in the 1970s and 1980s and then fled the fact-free netherworld I’d been reared in, when it comes to questions about the subject of changing minds perhaps I know what I’m talking about. I changed my mind about politics and theology. Most of my old evangelical friends and family did not. They also resisted (and resented) my attempts to talk them into joining me in what I regarded as the sunlight.

I have another sort of dark “expertise” besides knowing about changing minds related to my evangelical days: making people angry and using that anger to motivate political action.

Other than being too pushy, why did I fail to talk evangelical friends and family into “seeing reason” and joining me in my flight from fundamentalist fantasy-land? For instance, how come actual facts about evolution or global warming or how and why some people are gay seemed never to count in arguments? (No, it isn’t because they “chose that sinful lifestyle.”)

I didn’t change minds. I was just branded a traitor.

As the writer of a New York Times profile on me said of my fleeing from the myth-based religious right:

In every line of work, there are family businesses. But no business is more defined by dynasties and nepotism than evangelical preaching. Lyman Beecher, Bob Jones, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Robert H. Schuller, Jim Bakker: all had sons who became ministers.

It is never easy stepping into Dad’s shoes, of course. But when the family business is religion, it is especially perilous. That is one of the central laments, anyway, of “Sex, Mom, & God,” a new memoir by Frank Schaeffer. To secular Americans, the name Frank Schaeffer means nothing. But to millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal, and Frank is the reluctant, wayward, traitorous prince. His crime is not financial profligacy, like some pastors’ sons, but turning his back on Christian conservatives.

So… how does one entice a Trump voter to consider better options as the Great White Leader flails and fails?

One might mistakenly try to start by explaining that (as a Facebook friend commented) “there are no talking snakes or magic rib women,” that the Earth is very, very old, that “science uses empirical evidence, and then finally explain exactly what the word lie means…” For instance one might point out that on Trump’s allegations of wiretapping, none of the people who might have provided him with such secret intelligence have supported him. In fact he’s been proven—again—to be a pathological liar.

As I said, one might “try.” I should add try and fail. Reason isn’t a talking point with the delusional.

The real question is this: Do Democrats want to try to win arguments or actually win elections?

Turns out that with the unhinged you can’t do both. With a whole swath of American voters Hillary’s sober charts, facts and policy statements never did stack up against Trump’s raw emotion. I get it. I left the evangelical fold (as I explained to Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air” a few years ago) because of raw emotion, not reason.

I left when engulfed by a wave of disappointment. I was lured out by my sense that I’d been betrayed.

The more big-time leaders I got to know personally—people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell—the more I felt we were all just in a giant con game and all my ideals were betrayed. I became disgusted with myself and what I was helping to turn into a vast hate machine designed to rip people off: “Send us $25.00 and we’ll save America from the liberals, gays, feminists…” And so on and so forth.

I did not make a reasonable “choice.” Only later did I quit believing in most of the theology too. No one “talked sense” to me. I just couldn’t look in the mirror and keep spouting nonsense. My reaction was from the gut. That’s all.

Trumpism can’t be cured or reasoned with. But many Trump voters can be goaded through their default-position anger to vote against the Republicans. To them this will soon feel like getting sweet revenge on Trump and “these Republicans” for betrayal. It will be another way of expressing rage as former Trump fans begin to perceive themselves as victims of Trump and the quiescent GOP. And for once that perception of victimhood will be factual.

Facts were never the evangelical white voters’ “thing.”

Take a “born-again” white evangelical Trump-voter like Jerry Falwell Jr. I was a friend of his dad. I preached from his pulpit. I spoke to his entire student body. I “get” Falwell Jr. He shares my pastor-kid, weird background. Trump voters such as Falwell didn’t reason their way into voting for Trump any more than they reasoned their way into “accepting Jesus” (or these days into believing that guns make them safe).

Nor did Trump voters like Falwell “think through” the entire biblical mythology that their becoming “born-again” demanded they accept as true. No wonder such folks also fall for conspiracy theories. The entire fundamentalist take on the Bible is a conspiracy theory about God, the devil, creationism, morality and how Liberals are generating fake science and fake facts about things “I just know in my heart is true!” that aren’t so.

In other words, they’ve long since turned off their brains as the “fee” for buying into the evangelical version of “salvation.”

White evangelical Trump voters had been floating in a fact-free zone for ages, training, as it were, for accepting Trump as another version of their personal savior. Reason wasn’t the point. Conversion was.

Put it this way: the Reformer John Calvin, who shaped the evangelical Protestant view of God, wrote that reason has nothing to do with salvation: “For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others” (Inst. III, 21, 5).

For Calvin, choice had nothing to do with how and why people “accept Jesus” and get “saved”—let alone reason. That any one of us wicked sinners makes it into heaven is a miracle, according to the theology inherited from Calvin. As Billy Graham used to say, “A miracle is something only God can do. It’s the impossible, made possible by the power of God! In light of this amazing truth, the greatest miracle of all is the miracle of salvation!” Franklin Graham took this to the next level when claiming Trump’s rise was ordained by God: thus a miracle.

So how does the Democratic Party compete with “miracles” like Trump?

A miracle is (according to Wikipedia) an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. “Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity), magic, a miracle worker, a saint or a religious leader.”

This perceived as a miracle Trump did not rationally convince his voters to vote for his charade. He fed their anger, not their reason. His anger-feeding message was that The System is rigged by and for the elites. Already resentful voters heard this in their own ways. Evangelicals heard “rigged against the Bible.” Secular voters heard “rigged against lower class whites like me.” All Trump’s voters arrived at the Trump party angry, and he made sure they left twice as angry and convinced they’d been victimized by Liberals.

But Trump’s supporters were not voting for what they’re getting:

Trump soon reverted from lavish promise-maker mode to his MO as a failing and flailing plutocrat/autocrat with an agenda that steamrolls the working class and poor as it destroys their most essential programs. Moreover, Trump wants to fund the military instead of medical care and education.

And Trump’s military buildup will soon lead him to start wars as frivolous as his cascade of lying Tweets.

Trump is arguing for a military buildup before even producing a strategic vision or laying out priorities to guide the new spending. Instead he has justified it, so far, with two lies: that President Obama slashed the defense budget and that as a result the military is depleted and needs to be “rebuilt.”

In other words, Trump just loves the idea of power, and playing with guns (and nukes) makes him feel like a big leader. And Bannon (who always looks like he’s coming off a 3-day meth binge and the OxyContin just kicked in) is like some overwritten character out of a cartoon when it comes to being a warmonger’s warmonger. This alleged wife abuser who loves war now whispers apocalypse into Trump’s ear.

I fear that Trump will soon be killing the working class’s children serving in our “all volunteer” military (something that I’ve written about extensively). Working-class Trump-country sons and daughters will die out of all proportion to upper-class kids like Trump’s children who tend (to put it mildly!) to not volunteer. The flag-draped coffins from the Bannon/Trump wars will not be returned to Trump Tower-type addresses.

We must take a page from the Trump/Bannon “anger-incitement” playbook.

As his failures multiply, Trump could—and I predict he will—use a military confrontation, such as the one brewing now with North Korea, to look (briefly) like a commander-in-chief and to distract from that day’s self-inflicted fiasco. And another terrorist attack on the Bannon fantasy “white Christian homeland” would give Bannon/Trump a sick rationale (“justification”) for sweeping new executive actions.

And having lied about everything else, if Trump happens to go to war, no one—not even most Trump voters—will buy his Tweets explaining why. Even less will they buy his next round of Tweets “explaining” how the inevitable debacle was someone else’s fault.

As Trump disappoints his voters and kills his voters’ kids, I believe that informed progressive people will be on the cusp of great victories for justice, kindness, mercy and common sense. But these victories will only take place if reasonable people embrace and use the Un-Reason of the Trumped. In other words, overly nice and civilized Americans will have to become a bit more ruthless.

In other words, we need a Democratic Party version of jujitsu rather than more futile reasoned debate.

Here’s where to begin: As Trump enters his third month in office, he’s already established at least one record: he’s the president most open and willing to use the prestige of the White House to enrich himself and his family.

As health care slips away for the working elderly poor, as lower middle-class students are crushed by debt, as vets languish, as the lies mount… hammer home the Trump self-enrichment scheme! Turn his much bragged-about wealth against him!

From late night comedians, SNL, Samantha Bee, to Congress and the pages of the New York Times, opponents of Trump must pound on and repeat this theme: Trump is getting rich as he spreads misery on others. Trump is a fraud! Trump is NOT keeping his promises to his voters. Trump has let his voters down. Trump is betraying the people who put him in power.

Jujitsu uses the philosophy of yielding to an opponent’s force rather than trying to oppose force with force (or Un-Reason with reason).

Manipulating the Trump/GOP attack on reason by using its irrational anger and resentment-based force and direction allows jujitsu ka (to control the balance of your opponent) and hence prevents the opponent from resisting the counterattack.

Thus, as Trump voters claim to be victims, tell them they are victims—of Trump’s ego and greed!

No one likes to be betrayed. That’s why and how Democrats will win.

Democrats may count on Trump. He always runs true to form.

Trump is a betrayer by nature. Trump can’t change. He’s the serial sociopathic betrayer of wives, women everywhere, business partners and now the GOP. He may even have knowingly betrayed us to Russia. And soon Trump is going to betray every working-class mother who will receive a coffin back with her dead son or daughter from Trump’s lie-based and/or incompetent military adventures.

Trump will also betray that waitress who voted for him but now won’t get overtime.

Trump will betray the southern family who loved him for his white-power KKK-loving shtick but now is about to lose their mom to cancer because she can’t get insurance.

Trump will also betray the white evangelical voters’ self-respect as his escalating tsunami of Tweet lies takes on unstoppable chaos-inducing momentum.

When the many coffins come home (and they will); when the jobs in coal don’t come back; when the weight of Trump’s mental instability takes on a life of its own (in ballooning “I was wiretapped” type farce); when the Russia scandal comes home to roost and becomes a criminal case; when medical care for the Trump voters is lost and stories are told about dying children in the same news cycle as stories about how the presidency is enriching Trump’s children… we can’t expect most Trump voters to admit they were wrong. What we can do is urge the Democratic Party redirect Trump voters’ anger against the Republican Party that’s empowered this fraud.

Amplifying resentment at Trump’s betrayal of his own voters is the Democratic Party’s best (perhaps only) winning strategy.

You don’t argue Trump voters into anything (because they do not acknowledge the existence of objective facts) any more than you can convince that rabbit-chasing greyhound to stop. You just need to show them the next shiny object on which to refocus their anger.

Thus every rebuttal of Trump, every comedy skit, every op-ed, every TV commentary– no matter what it’s “about” — has to really be about one thing: Expose Trump as the betrayer of his own followers.

Let it be shouted from the housetops: Trump didn’t “drain the swamp” but led his base into the swamp and then then mugged them there!

The Democratic Party must assiduously nurture feelings of disappointment and personal betrayal in the (aptly named) Trumped. Disappointment with and growing anger at Trump is the match that—when willfully, cleverly, and ruthlessly tossed again and again and again into the gas can of perpetual right wing resentment—will incinerate the GOP.

Can I get an AMEN!? I appreciate your efforts and insight into the Trumped up blind sheep march to slaughter. Thank you for enlightening me and for your encouraging words. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you through your YouTube “Rants” over the past year. I wish that more people will get on board, hear your story, be enlightened, and empowered to act. Thank you Frank Schaeffer, please keep It up. I haven’t seen or heard much from you in quite a while. Take good care, enjoy your life, love your family, express yourself, and speak more frequently.

Hi Fred good point and if you read my novel “And God Said ‘Billy!'” you’ll see that the book is about that… and ends with a priest deconstructing the Orthodox far right and traditionalists… doing what I can

When my dogs would mindlessly bark at a squirrel, the only thing that would work to stop them was to shout so loudly that it would terrify them into remembering that *I* am alpha and said ‘no’. It looks like that is what God will be doing for America. We will learn the same lesson Germany did. Maybe at the same cost of lives.
Back in Oct 1981 I realized that our country was becoming fractured and people were becoming less and less willing to listen to anyone who disagrees with them. I realized that it would take “a good solid war on our own shores” to change that. Something so bad that it would scare the hate out of us. Like the end of WW2 and the east/west Berlin did to Germany. They couldn’t THINK of starting a globe conquering thing now. Their students hear a comprehensive history of the Nazi party three times from third grade to Senior year in high school. All three times it is “learn what stupid thing we did and this is why you shouldn’t do that same stupid thing. Hate is bad, prejudice is bad. Don’t be dick like we were.”
It’s too bad it will take something just as personally devastating to get US to learn what Nazi Germany did, but such is the breaks when you are mindless.

Obama went from “yes we can” to “let me explain”.
Trump will do the same. When he does, it will be too late to save the lives of those most precious to us.

“Diestra y siniestra” is what God allows us to freely choose since he did not create us as puppets or robots. Similar to our progeny, they will make choices. Whether they love us or not is their choice. If we love them is also a choice. Our instincts are designed for preservation and survival. Our brains are designed to motivate the forces that help us sustain these instincts. Our flesh is a sense system that is designed to feel, see, hear any foe or friendly living organism so that survival is guaranteed. Not making the right choices with respect to our misinterpreted perceptions and feelings can threaten our survival. Therefore, our survival for the allotted time here on earth relies on obedience to “Wisdom” and the denial of “foolishness”.

I’ve been waiting for this one Frank (little Frankie) as I knew you in my “fundy” days. I knew it was coming…& I knew it would be GOOD. HAve you written about the connection between all of the “evangelical” groups like Dominionists, “The Family” sometimes called “The Gathering”. All these sorts if “christians” on Trumps Religious Advisory team who believe, as you mentioned, that God put Trump in office. I’m sure Bannon would never claim to be an evangelical (unless Paula White got a hold of him too) but half of his “picks” (chosen ones) do.
Not to mention the good Christians like Gabrielle (Forget last name), Robert Spence & that ilk. Keep ’em comin’ Little Frankie ! Love you…..Deidre

Frank, here are some things I worry about, regarding the approach you recommend here:

1) Lighting up and riding anger is sort of a deal with the devil. A mob’s anger, once aroused, has terrible consequences for SOMEONE, and it’s not easy to control once it gets going. One could hope that the anger only affects Trump, but is the amplified fury going to do even more harm to the body politic? Or is the damage already done? Things can always get even worse, right?

2) There is one thing that Trump is terrific at, as seen in his business career. He makes bad decisions, but then he is always able to make the consequences of those decisions fall on someone else (his suppliers, investors, etc.). So far, Trump fans seem endlessly willing to ignore or explain away his ethical breaches, narcissism, etc. He has been a master of directing his fans’ ire towards the people he wants them to hate. Is it reasonable to expect that if their anger is aroused further, he will lose control of it? Or is the argument here that he will fail with just enough of them that they will vote against him in the next election (for whom? the people they’ve been riled up against already? or will they just stay home, so that the Democratic coalition wins via turnout?).

good point riding the tiger is never fun… but your “will fail with just enough of them that they will vote against him in the next election…” is the idea. A number of voters who went for Obama twice switched to T and can be lured back… disappointment (real or imagined) is their deal…

You make many excellent points about the art of persuasion. But in order to get your message out to more of your target audience, you must find a way to present this in a more concise format.

My Facebook friend shared your post, but he prefaced it with “Please read the entire blog post…” That’s a warning sign, right there.
Thanks for fighting this battle. The world needs more people like you.

good point… that’s why I often cover similar material in my video posts that sometimes go very wide with many hundreds of K or even M views… I see this article more as a serious baseline from which people who do read longer pieces might freely borrow a bit of information… thanks for reading! F

I emerged from a similar born-again, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it”, there’s-a-demon-around-every-corner background. Your insight as someone who’s been there, done that, and probably still uses the t-shirts to wash the car is invaluable. Thank you.

U R my new hero! I probably wouldn’t have liked U much years ago… So damn glad U saw the light… Got smart… Joined the side of sanity… However U want to describe it. This piece is mandatory reading for everyone! The Kool-Aid drinking chump crowd & the level-headed folk who see chump for who & what he is: Grifter, w/a capital “G”!

Beautiful. In the 90’s I was married to a big-church-Christian. Many memories of repression and mind control. Bannon’s influence in our government must cease. The gaslighting, propaganda and back room control is destroying us. Thank you for your work. This message is timely as a coworker just can’t handle Trump Truths.

As always, a good read. As a recovering evangelical myself, with many dear friends still in that camp, I can really related to what you are saying. Please keep the analysis coming. Those who have never operated in that wWorld have a hard time understanding where folks are coming from.

I saw you a number of years ago in eastern Washington. We’d love to get you out here again!

Democrats must now constantly pound on Republicans to fix the health care systems we have in place. If they are going to “walk away” from the problems that require fixing then we need to point at this abandonment of responsibility every chance we get. Everyone is familiar with the spoiled kid who says if he can’t have things his way, he is taking his ball and going home. That’s the meme to use. The fact is that the ACA, Medicare and Medicaid can be strengthened and improved. Republicans refusal to do so needs to hammered home.

Hi,I read your new stuff named “There’s Only One Way the Democratic Party Can Win Back the White House and Congress: Toss a Lit Match into the Gas Can of Trump Voters’ Perpetual Anger” daily.Your story-telling style is awesome, keep it up! And you can look our website about تحميل اغانى.

The democrats gave the election to Trump for the reasons you stated. I pray the party has learned its lesson well. I live in a red state (MO) in a very conservative but generally well educated county near the Mason-Dixon line. The Trump supporters here still think everything they hear negative is fake. Lots of supporters of theocracy and dominionism along with hate for Obama, minorities and the poor. It is going to take one of “their” people telling them they have been betrayed as they will never listen to a Democrat and the only news they will listen to is Fox news. If Trump goes down via treason or impeachment and conviction, there will likely be an uprising from the alt-right. Add Pence to Trump in those scenarios and the Christian Soldiers are going to come out of the woodwork. When/If this happens, betrayl won’t play with this crowd and the left is not going to sit by quitely.
The thing that really bothers me is the extreme deep division in our country. I see it daily in the vitriol expressed on social media by both sides. How does the left get out your message and put a stop to it with respect to those on the left? One thing I know for sure is that the Civil War isn’t over yet!

Though I am probably in the minority who have commented on this blog post as a still-Evangelical Protestant (though I cannot call myself a fundamentalist in the contemporary sense of that word), I do have to say that I appreciate your writing here.

I was not (and could not be, under any circumstances) a Trump supporter or voter. I genuinely see him as tantamount to everything vile that the Republican Party has become: a my-way-or-the-highway party that wishes to control as many elements of the lives of the citizenry, and uses the most historically prevalent religious worldview to do so. It has become so ingrained that a “good Christian” would always vote for the Republican or it would make God angry.

This modernized brand of manifest destiny — everything ranging from God ordaining Trump’s election to the belief that the US holds a special place as a champion in God’s plan for the world — has immense potential for being used by someone without much shame and with an intense sense of self-involvement, just like Trump. Not only this, but it also seems to me to fly in the face of the teachings of the focal character of the Scriptures, who spent very little time trying to leverage political or military force to coerce obedience to God.

Having said all this, there are a few things of which I’m skeptical in your process:

“And having lied about everything else, if Trump happens to go to war, no one—not even most Trump voters—will buy his Tweets explaining why. Even less will they buy his next round of Tweets ‘explaining’ how the inevitable debacle was someone else’s fault.”

I cannot say I am nearly as confident in this as you seem to be. Certainly, the statement you put forth here is a reasonable one, but as you stated early on (I’ll paraphrase), throngs of these people aren’t the sort who are going to be logically reasoned out of their current view. I think this step in the process perhaps grants all but a straggler here or there too much credit.

Also, purely based on the anecdotal input I’ve received from this most recent election (which I admit is not sufficient as a stand-alone rebuttal to anything), it seems as though Trump’s appeal is something far different than the Republicans of the past, particularly when it comes to the fundamentalist Evangelical voter. Trump does not look like any of the GOP candidates after Goldwater. He doesn’t fit the “good follower of Jesus” mold that the GOP has used for decades, bizarrely warped though it may be. He’s cheated on and divorced wives. He very obviously showed an estranged relationship with the Bible when he referred to “Second Corinthians” as “Two Corinthians.” He’s brash, violent in speech, and embodies with a bold sense of pride some of the vices and sins most frequently opposed in the Scriptures.

Conservative Christian Republicans can’t honestly point to Trump’s words or deeds and say they voted for him because he obviously loves Jesus, and thankfully, I have yet to hear a Republican Christian make that claim, though I’m sure such people exist.

It seems like Trump has appealed to something else in those looking to see themselves as victims (Christian and non-Christian alike): ego.

When a bully on the playground compliments a weaker classmate and invites that classmate to join in the bullying, he’s stroking the classmate’s ego by inflating that classmate’s belief that he can project strength.

In a roundabout way, this isn’t just what Trump is doing, it kind of worked for Obama as well, though at a different angle, at least for the first election. McCain projected a weak, frail frame and a less-than-captivating presence when speaking. Obama, however, was a masterful orator with excellent posture, a good fashion sense, a seemingly good level of physical fitness, and an educational pedigree that was above reproach.

In our school yard analogy, Obama was the kid who wore the better clothes, was comfortable talking to girls and boys alike, was good at sports, and was generally well-liked. McCain was the kid in a back brace who needed a speech therapist.

It isn’t terribly difficult to see that the man with the confident gait and comfortable speaking style was able to look more like our cultural ideal for a “leader” when he was able to draw comparisons to McCain. Logic had nothing to do with it. The air of confidence and appearance of a floral blend of intelligence and empathy for citizens with problems in their lives was far more effective than ANY level of reasoning. Citizens want to be on the popular kid’s team. It’s good for their ego.

Enter now a traditional brand of bullying now: The kid who has to be in a special classroom, not because he’s dumb (he’s not), but because he’s disruptive, periodically violent, and unwilling to see the world through anyone’s perspective but his own.

When that kid, the bully, walks toward a weaker kid on the playground … maybe someone who has before been the victim of bullying … and says, “Hey, you, isn’t Derrick an idiot? Let’s go over and tell him how much of an idiot he is,” the classmate’s ego is stroked, because he feels like he was just treated more like an equal by someone who he reads as projecting strength. As such, he feels that he, himself, also projects strength. It’s good for his ego.

So, when you’ve got such a candidate, those who feel like they’ve been victims of the other bullies (read “the system,” whatever that means) get an ego boost when he treats them like equals. Not damsels in distress, needing him to rescue them, but as projecting strength like that candidate, it’s going to be a booster shot for the ego.

So, whether you have intensely individualistic non-Christians, Christians who believe that God plays chess with people on earth by making them “brave” and “strong” (you know, not “meek” or “longsuffering” like a weakling), and anyone who feels kicked by life in that moment, they’re all going to want to be on the side of “strength,” or at least on the side that projects it.

And here is where I return to agree with your point on reason and argumentation being futile endeavors. I think the ego boost of feeling like they project strength is addictive, and trying to reason with them will go about as well as trying to reason with an addict in the middle of a fever dream. They will make you out to be the villain in their delusions, because you’re trying to take away what makes them feel good, whether or not they would acknowledge it in such plain terms.

I’m not sure what the strategy you’ve outlined here might bring about, and I suppose that makes me worry some. On one hand, I think it may just end up being a blip in the perpetual back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats — that even if Democrats with back the bodies of federal government, the Republicans may then re-incite the anger that was directed at them and point it at those in office.

On the other, as has been stated above, lighting the nozzle of a gas can is a role of the dice, both figuratively and literally. The flames then go where they go, perhaps without any sound way to predict where that is. I daresay that it would take too single-minded an effort to effectively direct such outrage at an intended target … more than just unification under that cause.

However, I DO think that what you’ve offered here is probably the best way to get the Republican Party out of the driver’s seat, even if it means we end up with nobody in the driver’s seat for any length of time.

I agree with you on the religious right and Trump. I absolutely agree with your strategy. Where I diverge is that the Democrats are just the same only not as dumb or nuts. Trump and the GOP right wing shoot people in the face. The Obama/Clinton Democrats stab them in the back. We need to demonize both parties and create a real path out of the corporate wilderness they created for us.

Frank,
I appreciate your historical and emotional vantage point. I need some guidance on a few things that are probably clear to others but I don’t understand.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel,” as said by the Pope last February. How is it that Christians chose to believe Trump over the Pope?
Also his criminal sexual behavior, choice of thugs like Manafort and Bannon, as well as generally living in a way where the fruit of his life is rotted, how do Christians justify a vote for him?
Again, perhaps the non-reasoning takes over but to hear that Franklin Graham or other Christian leaders chose Trump is such a sad and pathetic statement about Christian leaders. All of his stated goals are similar to his current actions…the opposite of the Sermon on the Mount. Are these leaders blind, unable to read or interpret the Bible, have hearts of stone that they would ok the actions to destroy, persecute and crush those who are poor, disenfranchised, children, chronically ill, immigrants, women, people of color etc? The culture is becoming one of those with power, money and privilege are free to roll over those without…..How do folks not see the legalistic Pharisees in all of this rhetoric?
This is beyond the scope but it is demoralizing to see the lack of empathy and Philistine view point of American culture. Where do we see hope and integrity in this time of darkness?
Thanks for your clarity and guidance.

[…] gives us a path out, and the only way the Democrats can win back the White House and Congress, by throwing a lit match into the gas can of anger. If you read only one item in today’s Trump Damage Report, read […]

“Trump is getting rich as he spreads misery on others. Trump is a fraud! Trump is NOT keeping his promises to his voters. Trump has let his voters down. Trump is betraying the people who put him in power.” I can work with this. But, can this “tar” flow far enough down ballot to correct all of the damage done at the Federal, state and local levels?

Thanks Frank! From one PK to another, I think you sell yourself and your “congregation” short by suggesting the answer to the problem is to stay in the system; to switch locations in a burning house.
Otherwise, you’ve distilled the situation nicely.

o m g, we can try to address their legitimate concerns. It cannot be the case that ALL of their anger is groundless. MAny have lost jobs from global capitalism, something that Clinton(ism) endorses. THe answer is not to ignore their concerns but to change our priorities from corporatism /supply side) to demand side or trickle up .

Frank, I respect your arguments and your reasoning. What I don’t understand is that you seem rob think that the Democrat Party is a bastion of truth, goodness, and the true American Way. The Dems are just another political party that wants power and the spoils it brings. You really thing that a “permanent Democratic majority” (to use K. Rove’s hope for the GOP back when…) is the answer. You seem to put faith in a political entity that is undeserving of such faith. I operate with the motto: if you’re not a liberal at 20 you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 40 you have no head. If you still care about politics at 60 you have no life.” The third maxim has an alternative that I also like: “If you are not a heretic at 60 you have no courage.”

I know you have great courage and passion. I appreciate you and have enjoyed reading many of your books.

Also, one thing your article doesn’t touch on is the way in which Trump has reawakened the napping giant of white nationalism – he has validated the I’m-a-victim-of-liberal’s/Obama’s-preferential-treatment-of-minorities narrative and that feels good. And Trump HAS tried to deliver on his loathsome promises pertaining to immigrants and non-Christians but for the interference of fake news media and pesky liberal federal judges.

“And having lied about everything else, if Trump happens to go to war, no one—not even most Trump voters—will buy his Tweets explaining why. Even less will they buy his next round of Tweets “explaining” how the inevitable debacle was someone else’s fault.”

I dunno. Remember, the #Booger swallowed the Iraq lie, and to this day either actively defends it through rickety logic, or alters the history through revisionist hindsight and anachronisms. The actions of Bush and the man/men who took us there were/are no longer the prime movers of the lie . . . the lie became a smaller potato, and PATRIOTISM became the god. Inarguable. Faith based. Illusive.

To express any disappointment in Trump would expose a personal failure in having voted for the man, and shouldering THAT responsibility isn’t an option. #Boogers will find a slippery alternative, probably someone else in the GOP who will come forward as the new desciple who will rescue the Jesus Trump from the relentless persecution he’s faced. “TRUMP WOULD’A” will be the next catch phrase, “IF ONLY HE’D BEEN ALLOWED,” and the politicians to follow will be labeled as the righteous looking for revenge. A New Crusade.

Trump will be martyred, and Ivanka will be the new Mary.

Giraffes didn’t grow necks in a day. Many had to starve before evolution yearned for life. Let the #Booger die, I say. The GOP may have clocks, but civilization has repeatedly had the time.

There was a joke during the French Revolution about a man who saw a mob rampaging down the street. Struggling to keep up at the tail end was a respectable friend. The man was shocked to see this respectable friend tagging behind a mob and said “Why are you chasing that mob?” The friend replied “I have to, I’m their leader!”

Leftists have been trying for years, without success, to channel working class anger against the rich. As Thorstein Veblen observed, workers don’t hate the rich, they want to join them. And people have successfully sold the working class that the reason they’re not rich is their money is being stolen by the government and wasted on regulations that destroy their jobs, or given away to sociopaths.

The gas can is brim full of one kind of high-test fuel: resentment over loss of control. It’s too complex a tale to tell here, but until well into the 20th century, the Bill of Rights was held to apply only to the Federal government. Local government could and did censor books, pamphlets and theatrical productions. “Banned in Boston” once meant exactly that. Reactionaries had total control at the local level. And they want it back. They want to completely undo the Warren Court.

I argued for some time, to a steady chorus of “Lalalalalala I can’t HEAR you,” that it was important to defuse the growing anger by dialing back a few of the more stupid reasons for offense. After Charlottesville, I’m not sure there’s any easy way to defuse things. The alt-right has given themselves permission to go violent.